Waste without borders: Zhang Guofu, 35, makes EUR 700 a month, a huge wage in provincial China, sifting through waste that includes shopping bags from a British supermarket chain and English-language DVDs. The truth is that waste placed in a bin in London, can quite easily end up 5 000 miles away in a recycling factory in China's Pearl River delta.

Waste of all descriptions is on the move. Increasing amounts,
especially of waste paper, plastics and metals are being shipped from
developed countries to countries where environmental standards are less
stringent. Huge ships steam around the high seas everyday carrying
goods from emerging markets in Asia to the West. Rather than sail back
empty, and needing something to provide ballast, the ship owners are
only too happy to take waste products from Europe to be recycled back
in Asia.

That does not mean that shipments of waste are not regulated. Both
the UN and the EU have strict rules on what can be shipped where. At
the global level international trade of 'hazardous wastes' (waste that
is potentially dangerous for people or the environment) is regulated by
the
UN's Basel Convention.

The ban contained in this Convention has not been signed by enough
countries to bring it into force globally. However, the EU does have
restrictions in place and only allows '
hazardous waste' be exported to 'developed countries' where the
necessary technologies exist and sufficient safety and environmental
laws are in place. A 'developed country', for the purpose of the
restrictions, is defined as a member of the Organisation of Economic
Co-operation and Development (
OECD).

The EU's long term aim is that each Member State should dispose of
its own waste domestically (the 'proximity principle'). However, as
shipments of hazardous and problematic waste for disposal from
EU Member States nearly quadrupled between 1997 to 2005, this aim
has yet to be fulfilled.

The factors driving the export and import of waste vary:
availability of special treatment technology; a shortage of materials;
differences in prices for disposal or recovery.

EU policy, setting targets for recycling, also leads to waste
shipments from Member States who cannot meet their targets at home. The
volumes of waste on the market keep costs low for a country like China,
which needs cheap raw materials. As long as this waste is not for
disposal at its destination and does not contain hazardous materials,
it is deemed to be an acceptable trade.

Is your old TV better travelled than you are?

Europe has a body of legislation in place regarding the shipment of
hazardous and problematic waste. However, further evidence is required
as to the effectiveness of the legislation in terms of easing pressure
on the environment.

Electronic waste, which is considered hazardous, is an important
case. In Africa and Asia it is often dismantled with little or no
personal protection equipment or pollution control measures. Components
are often burnt in the open to retrieve metals and fly ash particulates
laden with heavy metals and other toxic materials are usually emitted,
resulting in increased human exposure, as well as contamination of
food, soil, and surface water.

We do not have a clear picture when it comes to waste electrical and
electronic equipment (
WEEE) shipped within and out of the EU partly because ambiguous
codes are used for the reporting of shipments of electronic waste. It
is difficult to tell if a television is being exported as a second hand
device, which is acceptable or as waste for disposal, which is not. In
general, export of WEEE from the EU to non-OECD countries is
prohibited. However, the export of a TV that still works is perfectly
acceptable.

There have been well documented cases that break this ban. Indeed,
it appears that a significant portion of the exported used television
sets, computers, monitors and telephones to non-OECD countries are
waste purchased with the intentions of retrieving the components and
elements mentioned above.

If the EU cannot sufficiently enforce its own prohibition on
exporting WEEE to non-OECD countries, this could seriously undermine
the ratification of the ban at the global level under the Basel
Convention.

Using European trade statistics it is possible to identify the
amounts, size and value of export of used electronic and electrical
products shipped from the EU to other regions (
Figure 1).

In 2005, more than 15 000 tonnes of colour television sets were
exported from the EU to African countries. In Nigeria, Ghana and Egypt
alone about 1 000 TV sets arrived every day. The average
value of exported colour television sets to Africa is very low: for
Africa as a whole the price per unit was EUR 64 and EUR 28 on
average for the three countries mentioned above. In comparison, TV sets
traded within Europe have an average value of EUR 350.

The low value per unit for TV sets sent to Africa suggests that many
of these exports are in fact used products, much of which is likely to
be waste.
As these figures are for television sets only, the total export of used
computers, mobile phones, CD players etc. to these regions is
expected to be significantly higher. This suggests that the EU ban on
the trade of hazardous waste with non-OECD countries is being
broken.

Non-hazardous waste

Between 1995 and 2007 (
Figure 2), shipments of non-hazardous waste such as paper, plastic
and metals shipped out of the EU also increased dramatically, mostly to
Asia, particularly China.

The amount of waste paper exported to Asia increased by a factor of
ten. For plastics the increase has been a factor of eleven and for
metals a factor of five. The shipped waste has also increased within
the EU, but at much lower level.

In 2007 as much waste paper was shipped to Asia as was shipped from
one EU country to another. The quantity of metals shipped within the EU
was larger than the amount shipped to Asia. However, the EU shipped
more plastic waste to the Asian market than within the EU.

Driving forces behind recycling

For over a decade, the cost of raw materials has been very high and
this, in turn, has increased the value of secondary raw materials
reclaimed through recycling.

Waste metals, paper, plastics and other waste materials from Europe
are feeding the booming Asian economy, which cannot be met by 'virgin'
material.

EU legislation (such as the
Packaging Directive) requiring Member States to achieve levels of
recycling, also indirectly encourage the shipment of waste material for
recycling.

The EU requirements for specific recycling rates have led to
increasing amounts of recyclable waste materials on the market. For
example, the amount of paper and cardboard 'packaging waste' that is
recycled increased from about 24 to 30 million tonnes between 1997 and
2005. The amount of plastic packaging recycled has increased from about
10 to 14 million tonnes in the same period. Is it good for the
environment?

The use of recycled waste materials instead of virgin materials is
generally good for the environment. For example, a kilo of paper made
from recycled raw materials uses half the energy of production using
virgin materials. Aluminium produced from recycled aluminium can use as
little 5 % of the energy needed using virgin materials.

In general, recycling therefore contributes substantially to the
reduction of energy-related emissions of CO
2 and other environmental pressures.

However, because we often don't know what happens to waste after it
has left a European port, we cannot say whether an individual shipment,
and thus shipments in general, are good or bad for the environment.

Looking ahead

Within the EU, transboundary shipments of waste for disposal, as
well as 'hazardous and problematic' waste for recovery, must be
notified to the national authorities. This 'national' notification is
very detailed. However, a summarised version of the data on the
shipments is all that is passed onto the European Commission, so the
overview at an EU level is unclear.

If more detailed information, especially on the types of waste
shipped, were reported, the overview would allow a much better
assessment of the environmental and economic consequences of the
shipments. It could help us to tell whether waste shipments are driven
by better treatment options, greater capacity or effective pricing. We
would better understand the role of lower standards, missing
legislation and poorer enforcement as drivers of shipments to less
developed regions. A clearer view of legal shipments at the EU-level
would also give a better indication of illegal shipments.

As this level of reporting is already going on at national levels —
many countries already generate more detailed national statistics on
import and export of waste — the increased reporting would not increase
significantly the burden on the Members States.

European Commission, 2007. The EU Member States
reporting according to Commission Decision 99/412/EEC of 3 June 1999
concerning a questionnaire for the reporting obligation of Member
States pursuant to Article 41(2) of Council Regulation No 259/93.

IMPEL (The European Union Network for the
Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law), 2005. Threat
Assessment Project, the illegal shipments of waste among IMPEL Member
States, May 2005.